Al-Lataminah was inhabited during the
Stone Age and excavations by teams from the
Arab world, the
United States,
France and the
Netherlands have been held at the site. One such excavation was held in 1965 and several artifacts were uncovered.
Ottoman era When Swiss traveler
Johann Ludwig Burckhardt visited the region in the early 19th century, during
Ottoman rule, al-Lataminah was described as the "principal village" of Sanjak Hama. During this period the village was part of the Sanjak (District) of
Hama and in late 1829, it consisted of 84
faddan, larger than any other village in the district except for
Taldou. It paid 8,250
qirsh in taxes, the highest rate of the revenue-producing (
hasil) villages in the district. In 1838, it had a predominantly
Sunni Muslim population. Towards the end of
Egyptian Khedivate rule (1832–1841), in 1840, al-Lataminah was a large village that paid a moderate tax rate of 700 qirsh, as result of a tax decrease for rural villages at the expense of urban towns.
Ongoing Syrian civil war The Syrian state media reported that on 9 March 2012, al-Lataminah's mayor was kidnapped from his home by anti-government fighters. His car had been stolen earlier on 30 September 2011. On 7 April 2012 secret
United Nations monitors reported that dozens of residents were killed when the village was shelled by government forces, days before a truce was to be established. The fatality count ranged from 24 to 27 and activists reported that the shelling was part of an attempt by security forces to raid the town after two days of clashes with defectors from the
Syrian Army. In September 2012
Al Jazeera English classified al-Lataminah as a "rebel village". A girl was reportedly killed and several more people were injured as a result of shelling by government forces on 12 September. In a mid-December 2012
rebel offensive against government-held positions in the Hama Governorate, al-Lataminah was captured by opposition forces along with a string of several other villages.
Gas attacks were reported as occurring in Al-Lataminah in October 2016. Additional attacks occurred on 24 and 25 March in 2017. They were substantially confirmed a year later by the
Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) as having been a
sarin gas attack, and a
chlorine gas attack, respectively. Another sarin gas attack occurred on 30 March 2017. On April 8, 2020, the OPCW issued a report determining that the
Syrian Air Force was the perpetrator of these chemical weapon attacks. From 2017, the city was situated in the southernmost sector of rebel-held territory (sometimes called the
Idlib pocket although Al-Lataminah is part of Hama Governate). As a result, the city was exposed to attacks by the
Syrian Arab Armed Forces from three directions, and suffered repeated bombardments and
Russian airstrikes despite the cease-fire arrangements supposedly provided by the 2016
Astana accord. On 20 August 2019, the
Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported that the rebel and
Islamist factions including
jihadist groups like
Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) had withdrawn from Lataminah in north Hama province amid
a military operation by Syrian government forces. On 30 November 2024, HTS rebels recaptured the city from the Syrian Army during the
Hama offensive. ==References==